Tick box or customer service…?

Often we have heard the phrase “tick the box” as a way of saying “well we have done enough to say we have done the task” – but have we really?

Many of us know that some jobs do only need a “tick in the box”, but sometimes we miss the point.

Last week while preparing for a business trip I was down my local high street (it’s just a few weeks to Christmas) and I noticed in our local shopping centre was a Santa’s grotto. Nothing unusual here except that, well I don’t know it just looked tatty. In previous years it has been a large and reasonably impressive looking grotto, more like a log cabin, not an open space with a Santa on a throne. In fact it was so bad I took a photo of it, intending to blog about this.

Then things changed.

This week I have been in Dubai, A Muslim region, not a Christian one.

On a trip I went into a small local mall – not one of the big tourist ones, but a shopping mall used by people living locally. Looking at the shoppers there is a good mix of Muslim, Christian and other faiths here… but the grotto!

Now this centre is a small one, almost the same size as my local shopping mall back home. But what a difference.

In comparison, the UK grotto is “ticking the box” – the one in Dubai is “meeting & exceeding” the needs and wants of shoppers.

Which of these two images inspires children – well I know which one does for me. This is the difference between delivering on our promise and ticking the box.

Which would you take a small child to?

Just how often do we tick the box rather than understanding that image means a lot?